


today marks 29 years since I kissed a very attractive man in Uberwald and then found out she was a lesbian who thought I was a lesbian

by Macdicilla



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol, Crackfic that takes a turn for the earnest, Discussion of Politics, Gen, HE IS BABY CALL 911, MLM WLW solidarity, accidental mutual misgendering, dedicated to my friend Marina who also goes into mom mode when drunk, folk metal, non-graphic puke scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 05:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17719364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macdicilla/pseuds/Macdicilla
Summary: Vetinari is 19 and trying desperately to have his first gay experience while on the Grand Sneer.Margolotta has recently stopped drinking blood and realized that luring maidens back to her castle had been an intricate ritual to touch the skin of other women the entire goddamn time.They are both geschwasted.He pukes on her shoes.This will be the start of a beautiful friendship.





	today marks 29 years since I kissed a very attractive man in Uberwald and then found out she was a lesbian who thought I was a lesbian

* * *

“We’re going out, Havvo,” called one of the other boys, “are you with us, or no?”

The long figure stretched out on one of the beds at the inn sighed, replaced his bookmark, and put his book down on the nightstand.

“That isn’t my name, Lewis,” Havelock Vetinari said. “And out? At this time?”

“Live a little, Dog-Botherer,” said Downey. “What happens on the Grand Sneer stays on the Grand Sneer.”

That seemed to Vetinari to be a stupid way of thinking. As far as he was concerned, what happened on the Grand Sneer was going to go into a little folder in his brain titled “Blackmail,” and then everyone else would be sorry, but only if strictly necessary. Still, he wasn’t about to warn them.

“I do intend to live a little,” he answered, “but I do wonder how much is really possible in rural Uberwald, after everything is closed. You’re not going to go topple unsuspecting cattle, I hope?”

Downey smiled nastily, thrilled to have the upper hand over him again.

“You might think everything was closed, if you were an idiot, idiot,” he said. “Only everything above ground is closed. The nightlife’s underground.”

This was quite literally meant. There were a lot of mines in Uberwald, including old ones that had fallen out of use, and something had to be done with them.

“So where are you going, then?” Vetinari asked with no real interest.

“Werewolf venue,” the young man named Lewis said, with a dirty gleam in his eye. “It’s two miles down the road. Werewolf women look much the same as human women, when you get down to it. Dance much the same too, I’m told. Wear much, or as little, the same, but–”

“Just don’t toss silver coins at them,” said Downey. “So, are you coming, scag?”

Vetinari shook his head.

“I expect I’d get very bored,” he said. “I hope you have a nice time, nonetheless.”

“I certainly will!” said Lewis cheerfully. “Bye, then!”

Downey and Lewis turned and left.

“Told you so,” Downey was saying to Lewis. “He’s got nothing. Hips-down, nothing, like your grandma’s porcelain dolls.”

“You can’t bring up my grandma, mate, not right now,” Lewis answered. “The only women I want to think about right now are Werewolf women. Or Verevolf vomen, as zhey say around here.”

“Verevolf vomen!” Downey answered back, in his best impression of an Uberwaldian accent, “Ha ha ha!”

Heavens, thought Vetinari to himself. And they call _me_ Dog-Botherer.

 

He waited a few minutes till he knew they’d be far enough down the road that they wouldn’t cross paths. And he was going to find a Dwarf bar.

Dwarf men and women looked the same. It did make courtship complicated, but as a side effect, certain prejudices present in human society were not present in Dwarfish society. Dwarfs knew that human men and women did not look the same, and they that had an easier time telling each other apart, but they wouldn’t dream of commenting on two of the same sort courting. Dwarfs were extremely, sometimes fanatically traditional about a number of things, but gender wasn’t one of their traditions. The result was that certain humans felt a lot safer in Dwarf bars.

Another thing that Vetinari had gleaned about Dwarfs from his studies and from his guide-book to Uberwald was that they had extremely loud folk metal music. He figured that if he kept an ear to the ground, quite literally speaking, he might be able to find a Dwarf bar. And if he found a Dwarf bar, he might be able to find human men there. And if he found human men there, and liked any of them, and plied himself with enough alcohol to get the courage to talk to one of them, he might be able to finally do it. He did have an approximate notion of what “it” was like, but he didn’t want to die wondering, and it did sound like a mutually pleasant time.

It was so nice to be in a foreign country, far away from everyone who knew you.

 

* * *

 

Lady Margolotta Amaya Katerina Crasinna etc, von Uberwald was a vampire, but that didn’t mean she drank human blood. She didn’t, not anymore. There was the whole temperance league, and she’d even helped found it. Margolotta had weaned herself from human blood onto cattle blood, and then she’d weaned herself off cattle blood. She was b-total now. There was no going back, not after all her hard work. The closest thing she allowed herself now was red wine with crushed-up iron tablets. It didn’t taste good, particularly, but it hit the spot. Well, it hit _a_ spot. It was like carob to chocolate.

She had also recently begun to suspect that luring maidens back to her castle to drink their blood had been an intricate ritual to touch the skin of other women the entire time. The desire for blood and the desire for the company of nice ladies were two entirely separate things. The desire for blood, she could not indulge, but the latter, she could, and she could find a nice woman at a Dwarf bar, and even drink her “fortified” wine there too.

But before leaving, she had to change her appearance. Igorina fetched her her tweed jacket and riding trousers. Going out as herself had the problem of attracting attention. It was partly because she was a lady of high society, and that would attract too much attention. It was also because she tended to attract a bit more of the right attention if she tucked up all her hair in a flat cap and widened her stance. Women seemed to like that. 

The woman at the other end of the Dwarf bar seemed to like it. She was eyeing her curiously. Margolotta finished her fourth–or was it fifth?–glass of “fortified” wine and waited till the young woman looked away so she could stare at her. She seemed to be sipping a large tankard of water through a straw. How sober and responsible of her. Gods, she was pretty. She was a tall, lean girl with very short, well-styled, black hair. Probably in her mid twenties. There was something elegant and angular about her features. The girl had an air of self-assuredness, which Margolotta liked. She was a bit on the pale side, but made up for that with a lovely blush on her cheeks, which Margolotta also liked. That meant she was interested. All Margolotta had to do was ask her to dance.

 

* * *

 

Vetinari successfully found the Dwarf bar. He had never heard folk metal before, and he wasn’t entirely sure if he liked it, but the sound was unmistakable. The place wasn’t well-lit, since Dwarfs weren’t too keen on excessive light, and it smelled faintly of ammonia. He felt ill at ease, but not nervous. Definitely not nervous. He was a trained Assassin, and he was the scariest thing in the room, so he should walk about at the very least like he knew the place. Walking about like he owned the place probably wouldn’t go over well with the Dwarfs.

Languages had been his best subject at school. His Uberwaldian was quite good, and he spoke it with no accent at all. He sidled up to the bar to order a drink. 

“Good evening, Bartender. Quite well, and yourself? Wonderful. I was wondering if you might indulge a rather unorthodox request. May I have one of those pint tankards on the wall back there, but full of vodka instead of beer? Thank you. Oh, and could I trouble you for a–”

He had learned the word for “straw,” but he had also learned that the same word was rather rude in some cantons of Uberwald, and he didn’t know whether it was rude in this one.

“–for a drinking tube?” he finished, without missing a beat. “Much obliged.”

He paid for his drink up front and sat down at the very end of the bar, away from the band. It was just very loud. 

Vetinari looked down at the drink in his hands and sniffed it. It was strong enough to burn his nose hairs clean off, which was the point of the drink, and probably didn’t taste too good, which was the point of the straw. If he placed the straw far back enough in his mouth, he didn’t have to taste the drink all that much, and could efficiently catapult himself into insobriety with tactical precision at maximum speed. Halfway through, Vetinari wondered if he would have to finish the entire drink. He didn’t feel too drunk yet. He made to stand up, and then decided against it. Ah, so it was working.

He scanned the crowd for suitable company. At the other end of the bar, he found a human man. The man was of medium height and cleanly handsome in a non-threatening way. Vetinari could tell he was a little older by the lines around his mouth and eyes. He looked like someone’s dad, but Vetinari hoped he wasn’t, because he wasn’t ready to become a step-father. The man appeared to have longer hair, and it was tucked up in his hat. A non-conformist, perhaps? Maybe he was interesting. Oh, and he had rather sharp canines. A Vampire! That wouldn’t be a problem. There were plenty of configurations for two people that didn’t involve mouths. No, that was putting the cart miles before the horse. Oh no, he was looking at him. Vetinari looked away but kept him in his peripheral vision. Oh gods, he was walking towards him. Okay, well, in that case, he was allowed to look. The man in the hat had a swagger in his step. It was a good look on him. Vetinari’s heart was causing a commotion in his chest. 

It was happening. It was happening now.

He finished his drink.

 

* * *

 

“Do you want to dance?” Margolotta asked the pretty young woman.

“What?” Vetinari asked the nice middle-aged man. The music was too loud.

Maybe the girl’s Uberwaldean wasn’t very good, Margolotta thought. Where might she be from? She looked Genuan, probably from the hubwards side.

“Do you want to dance?” the man asked Vetinari in Genuan.

“Oh! Yes, I do,” the girl answered in Uberwaldean. She looked a bit offended that Margolotta had switched languages on her.

“But I’m afraid I don’t know how to dance to folk metal,” Vetinari added.

“That’s okay,” the man said kindly. “I’m not feeling particularly steady on my feet right now.”

“Me neither,” said the Genuan girl with a little laugh, even though she had only been drinking water.

“Let’s just sway to the beat, yes?” Margolotta asked in a low, sultry voice.

Vetinari nodded.

They wrapped their arms around each other.

The older man was a bit fat in the chest, Vetinari noticed. He was soft and smelled nice. His face was out of focus. Quite possibly, there were two of him. Perhaps if he aimed between them…

The Genuan girl leaned in for a kiss, and placed a chaste one on the corner of Margolotta’s mouth. Margolotta grinned, took the girl’s head in her hands, and centered her better. Her mouth tasted—Blind Io’s balls! (His eye balls, of course)—she hadn’t been drinking water after all. Still, she seemed pretty lucid.

“This is nice,” said Vetinari, remembering to breathe.

“What?” asked the man, adjusting his hat and cupping his hand behind his ear.

“I think you’re nice,” said the tall girl with short, dark hair, a little louder this time, to be heard over the music.

“That’s very sweet,” said Margolotta warmly.

“Do you want to come back to my cast—to my home with me, Fraulein?,” the man in the hat said, “It’s much quieter there. We could talk and get to know each other.”

The tall girl nodded, and then a look of utter horror crossed her face.

“Fraulein? I’m not a Fraulein.”

She knit her eyebrows together, concentrating very hard.

“Oh no. Are _you_ Fraulein?” Vetinari asked.

The man shook his head. “No. Fraulein is for a younger woman. I would be Frau.”

The tall youth appeared to be on the verge of tears.

“I’m sorry but I’m not that either!” said Vetinari.

The m– the woman in the hat looked surprised.

Vetinari staggered back, then staggered forward, then caught his balance on Margolotta’s shoulders, then felt a violent spike of nausea.

“I’m feeling not very good, unfortunately,” he said, before emptying half the contents of his stomach on the nice lady’s brogues.

“Oh dear,” said Margolotta.

 

* * *

 

Outside of the bar, upstairs, in the night air, Vetinari was feeling better, but not by much. His ears were still throbbing. So were Margolotta’s. He was leaning heavily on her shoulder. Margolotta had shifted mental gears quite rapidly. She was now in a more parental mode.

“How old are you, young man?” she asked crisply.

Vetinari thought of lying, but then decided against it.

“Nineteen.”

“Nineteen? And what is a man of your age doing trying to pick up a man of mine at a Dwarf bar?”

“I can take care myself,” he slurred. “I’ve killed, you know.”

The comment didn’t seem to have an effect on Margolotta.

“Yes, yes, as have I,” she said without blinking. “Nasty habit. You were just about to add yourself to your list. A pint of vodka? In one sitting? Good lords.”

The young man said nothing. He was hunched over on the ground at the side of the road, heaving the rest of the contents of his stomach into a ditch.

“Sorry about your shoes, Madam,” he said weakly, once he had finished.

Margolotta squatted and patted him firmly on the back.

“You’re not from around here,” she said gently, pressing a handkerchief into his hand. “Where are you staying? I’ll walk you back.”

Vetinari got up, looked around, wobbled a bit, and realized he could not remember which way he’d come from.

“Okay,” Margolotta said, “change of plans. We’re going to go back to my castle, after all.”

“I’m fine,” he protested.

“You are feeling ‘not very good, unfortunately,’” she said. “And you are _geschwasted._ You need to clean up. You need to drink water. Possibly have a slice of buttered toast.”

“You needn’t trouble yourself, Madam. I don’t eat outside of mealtimes.”

“Then call it dark lunch,” she said firmly.

Vetinari nodded.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not sleep with you,” he joked politely.

Margolotta snorted, in spite of herself.

“Good. That makes two of us.”

 

* * *

 

The pair were walking very slowly, both trying to stay upright. They were nearing a castle. Vetinari looked about for a smaller house nearby, and finding none, began to go through _Twurp’s Peerage_ in his mind.

“Pardon me,” he said, “but I don’t think we introduced ourselves to each other. At least, not the conventional way. Did you mention your name?”

“I could tell you my names, if you have three minutes to kill,” she said.

“You must be Lady Margolotta von Uberwald, then,” he said brightly. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Yes,” she said, raising an eyebrow, “very good! And you are?”

“Havelock Vetinari.”

“Charmed.”

 

* * *

 

They reached the castle soon enough. Margolotta used a shoehorn to pry off her soiled brogues without touching them. Igorina took their coats and hung them on neat hooks in the cloakroom. When she returned, Margolotta asked her to fetch some linens for the east wing guest bedroom, and fetch the gentleman a pitcher of water.

Margolotta led Vetinari up a flight of stairs and down a hall to his room. She excused herself for a moment and returned with a small wooden box and an armful of black fabric.

She placed the small wooden box on a table near the foot of the bed and tossed the folded up cloth thing to Vetinari. He caught it, and unfolded it. It was a long-sleeved flannel nightgown.

“It’s one of my old ones,” she said. “It doesn’t fit me anymore, but should fit you just fine.”

“I couldn’t possib—“

“Igorina will have your clothes washed and pressed,” Margolotta continued. “I’ll step out while you change.”

She closed the door behind her, and waited for Igorina.

 

“The water, mithtreth,” Igorina said, proffering a blue floral jug and two cups. Margolotta took them and thanked her, and then knocked on the door.

“Are you decent?” she called.

“I strive to be,” the young man on the other end of the door replied. “Moreover, I am dressed.”

“Excellent,” said Margolotta, entering. “And now you can be washed, too.”

She placed the jug on the dresser, next to an empty basin.

Vetinari poured some of the water into the basin, washed his hands, then his face, then rinsed out his mouth.

Margolotta watched him in the mirror. She also noticed a small pile of what appeared to be light weaponry next to his clothes. There were at least five small knives. She wondered if he had more on his person, or whether he trusted her enough to put them all aside.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

“I’ve moved around a bit,” Vetinari answered, keeping his eyes on her reflection in the mirror, “but the short answer is Ankh-Morpork.”

“Ah,” she said, “interesting place. I heard you got a new Patrician recently. Who was it, again?”

She knew, but wanted to hear it from him.

“Lord Snapcase, my lady,” he said, masking his distaste.

“Not much better zhan Homicidal Lord Vinder, from vhat I hear from my sources,” she said in Morporkian.

The accent struck him as an affectation, possibly to put others at ease.

“Then I commend you on the quality of your spies,” he said, after a pause. “Not very many people in Ankh-Morpork have realized that yet.”

Sharp, she thought. I would have liked to meet him sober.

“And your take?” she asked, switching back to Uberwaldean.

“Wrong priorities.”

“How so?”

“Power and staying in power should be a secondary effect of the Patricianate, not its goal.”

“It’s nice to wield a little influence every now and then, though, no?”

“That’s not my point. Why be paranoid when you can make yourself indispensable? But he refuses to, or at least is unable to. It’s a service position, the way I see it,” Vetinari said. “Service to the city. Ought to be, at least.”

“Interesting theory,” Margolotta said.

“And he’s had people put to death he shouldn’t have.”

“Speaking personally or politically?”

There was a very slight tremor in his voice when he answered,

“Both.”

Margolotta thought she should hug him, but that seemed too intimate. Instead, she picked up the small wooden box and rattled it.

“Are you tired, or up for a game of thud?”

“Both again, as it happens,” he said. “But I’ll do my best.”

 

* * *

 

Margolotta was playing the Troll side, and not winning. She yawned dramatically at the octagonal checkerboard.

“Oh, would you look at the time? I should really be in my coffin now. Why don’t we finish this later?”

Vetinari narrowed his eyes at her.

“Impeccable timing,” he said sarcastically.

“Isn’t it just? You should sleep too. And have some water, for gods’ sake. I know I will.”

She got up to leave.

“Thank you for hosting me in your home, by the way,” he said quietly. “Still sorry about the shoes.”

She smiled.

“It’s fine. It’ll wash. Now rest.”

 

* * *

  

They both had hangovers in the morning, especially young Vetinari, who was experiencing his first serious one.

“What do you eat?” asked Margolotta.

Vetinari lay face-down diagonally on the bed. He had managed to get dressed in his cleaned clothes, but he wasn’t feeling particularly inclined towards verticality or eating.

“Are you still feeling ‘not very good, unfortunately’?” she asked.

“Please respect my dignity,” he mumbled into the covers. “I will master myself in two minutes.”

“Oatmeal?” she asked. “Do you want oatmeal?”

 

* * *

 

They walked back to the inn where Vetinari was staying. Margolotta wore a ridiculously large sun hat to keep the light out of her eyes, and a long-sleeved dress and gloves to keep her vampiric skin safe from the sun. Vetinari just squinted, powering through.

“How much longer will you be in this part of the country?” she asked.

“About a week and a half.”

“Well, you’re welcome over for tea anytime you like. I mean it. We still need to finish our thud game. Please visit.”

“I’d be delighted to.”

They waved goodbye as they parted. He gave a subtle, measured wave, and she gave an energetic wave with her whole arm.

 

Lewis, one of his former classmates, spotted him outside of the inn window and ran down the stairs to greet him.

“Mate, you were gone all night! What happened? Downey and I were worried.”

Vetinari raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I was worried,” Lewis corrected himself. “Downey was hoping you’d fallen and broken your neck or something.”

“That sounds more like him,” Vetinari said. He racked his brain for something else to say to make conversation. “Did you enjoy the werewolf venue?”

Lewis made a face.

“You know, I don’t think we were the target audience for that. Not to be racist, but I wasn’t expecting them to be, you know, half-transformed with all that hair and eight nipples and stuff. We left after about twenty minutes. You seem to have had a better time, huh?” he said, pointing his chin up in the direction of Margolotta’s retreating figure.

“Her? She’s just a new friend, Lewis,” Vetinari said, fully aware of how untrue it would ring to the likes of him.

“Yeah, right,” said Lewis, with a silly grin on his face. “Look, I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks,” said Vetinari.


End file.
